Little chance of another minority, PM says during prime-time interview

Canada will either be governed after the next election by a majority Conservative government, or by a coalition of the three other opposition parties, Prime Minister Stephen Harper predicted Monday.

“I think the next time our party will either form a majority or I think we’ll see a coalition of the other parties,” Harper said in an interview with the CBC’s Peter Mansbridge that aired Monday night. “That’s my belief. Everything I see points to that.”

“I, of course, will always be happy to see if the people of Canada elect a Conservative minority, I’d be happy to do that. But my anticipation is that we’ll go one way or the other the next time.”

The Conservatives have often used the fleeting attempt to form a coalition by former Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion, NDP Leader Jack Layton and the Bloc Québécois’ Gilles Duceppe as reason to attack their opponents. However, Harper said a coalition can be legitimate if, as in the case of David Cameron’s British government, the coalition is formed by the party that finished first in the election.

“When it’s a coalition that is seeming to overturn the result of an election, I think that’s when the public have a big problem with that.”

The Conservatives have sometimes chafed at their minority standing in the House of Commons, arguing it has prevented them from accomplishing some of their goals. But Harper, who has now led the longest minority government in Canadian history, said his government has been able to make it work.

“It hasn’t always been pretty. We don’t get done everything we want to get done. But I think for the most part considering what could have happened, it has served Canadians fairly well.”

Harper‘s comments comes as the political rhetoric has heated up in recent days and the Conservatives have launched a separate series of attack ads in English and in French. They also come as most public opinion polls show that Harper’s Conservatives are leading the opposition Liberals by a comfortable margin.

Yesterday, Canadians got a glimpse into the kind of strategy they can expect from the Conservatives should the country be plunged into an election in the near future.

The English ads primarily target Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff, portraying him as a tax-and-spend Liberal who would resuscitate a coalition with the NDP and the Bloc, and questioning his motives for returning to Canada.

In French, the ads appeared to all but write off Montreal, playing to Quebec’s traditional rivalry between “La metropole” and the regions. Touting the slogan “our region in power” the ads primarily target the Bloc’s power base in rural Quebec, accusing Duceppe of being “too much of a Montrealer.”

During an interview with former Action Démocratique Leader turned television host Mario Dumont, Harper also highlighted that theme, pointing out his trips to small town Quebec

In the interview, which was taped last Friday and aired Monday night only hours after the attack ads were made public, Harper said the party is already a “force” in rural Quebec and will try to increase his government’s representation from Quebec’s regions in the next election.

“I think when people look at what has happened over the past two years in the regions they will ask the question, is it important to have MPs around the table when we make decisions. It is important because the regions have a need for job creation, economic growth and economic opportunity. It is important for them and you can’t get that with a party that decides to just vote no to just about any federal project.”

However, Harper said he’s not about to trigger an election.

“I am told there are opportunities but frankly, the population is not looking for opportunistic elections,” he told Dumont. “The population’s real preoccupation is economic and I am content to govern.”

Any party that doesn’t listen to the public and plunges the country into an election will pay a political price, Harper predicted.